


Easy doesn't exist

by AetosForeas



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Genre: Funerals, Gen, It was too sad to imagine her without a new eagle for 2400 years, Kassandra gets a new eagle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 01:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20323000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetosForeas/pseuds/AetosForeas
Summary: It's sometime after 399 BC and Kassanda goes home for Stentor's funeral and to see her mother and brother again





	Easy doesn't exist

She was shocked at how old her mother looked.

She knew she shouldn’t be – she herself had been born more than six decades earlier, in the second year of the 82nd Olympiad, and the 98th would be in a year. Her mother was easily eighty years old, if not older. Her brother had met her at Gytheion, and that had also been a shock, to see him with grey hair and a thick grey beard and a broad smile on his face. He’d hugged her, and she’d taken some solace in the strength of his grip. He was still strong, still built like a warrior despite decades away from that life.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“You’ve been busy.” He left his hand on her shoulder. “_Mater_ said you were in Egypt for a while.”

“Egypt, then back to Kephallonia, and then Anatolia for a while. Xenophon’s troubles.” She held her arm out and a young eagle, just past the eaglet stage, landed on her forearm. “This is Phaethon. I found him in Egypt. He decided to keep me.”

“You and your eagles.” He reached out a hand and caressed the bird in a spot near the base of his head. Phaethon made a soft cry of pleasure, leaned in to the fingers. “You look wonderful. Haven’t aged a day.”

Since she hadn’t, she just made a weak little smile.

They rode together up to the house in Sparta. The city itself felt different – smaller, or just less crowded. Alexios talked while she sat and listened to him, amazed at how different he was. How time had changed, gentled him, given him a smile she’d never seen when he first returned to them.

“Of course, I had to leave them back in Arkadia. The farm needs all the hands it can get.” She nodded, not sure what she’d missed. Talk of his family, perhaps. Knowing her own son was somewhere in Egypt and she didn’t know where was by now a dull ache, so much a part of her that she didn’t know what it would be like to not hurt that way. Who would she be without that constant reminder? “Euryale wanted me to ask you to come visit, but I know you’re busy.”

“Yes. Busy.” The Egyptians had been difficult clients over the years, and although Egypt was still free of Persia – she’d made sure of that with blood and toil, first assassinating her old ‘friend’ Amenirdisu when he proved too weak to hold the Order at bay, and then replacing his successor (and the one who’d hired her to kill Amenirdisu) Nefaarud in turn for Hakor, who was at least a strong leader. She would do anything to keep the Order out of Egypt, anything to keep them away from Elpidios. She’d kill a dozen Pharaohs for that. “Perhaps after…”

“She’s fine, Kass.”

“Of course.” She looked at the large temple to Athena Chalkiokos up the hill, past the tomb of Orestes. She’d seen the city from atop it, and it had always been her favorite view of the city. “I can’t believe Agesipolis got Stentor killed. In _Argolis_.”

“He died with his men.” Alexios had never really come to _like_ his step-brother, but a certain grudging respect had eventually developed. “With Nikolaos gone…”

“Yes.” She didn’t know if she was supposed to mourn Nikolaos or not. He’d been her _pater_, he’d raised her, trained her. He’d thrown her off of Mount Taygetos. He’d shaped her life in so many ways. He’d accepted Natakas, even though they’d never actually gotten married, and he’d loved the son she and Natakas had made. He’d never been the same after she sent Elpidios into hiding with Darius, and she often wondered if she’d killed him with that act.

She was thankful when they arrived at the door to Myrrine’s house and she could stop thinking for a little while. She tied Eros, Phobos’ son and a very fine horse in his own right, and brushed his mane with her hand while whispering in his ear for a moment.

“I’ll be back soon. Be good. There’s water here and I’ll get you feed when I can.”

Phaethon screeched and wheeled above them in the air. She hoped he would settle soon, but young birds often have a lot of energy to burn off.

The sight of her mother in the doorway still nearly took the feet out from under her. She bent to brush her lips against her _mater’s_ cheek, felt the slight trembling in the hand that brushed her face in return.

“Hello, lamb.”

“_Mater_.” She reached into a bag at her side. “I brought you this. It’s from Egypt. I think they get it from the nomads in the Sinai.”

“Oh?” She opened the bag with steady fingers, and Kassandra wondered if she’d imagined the tremble she’d felt before. Myrrine lifted the small yellow ball out and sniffed it, and smiled. “Myrrh.”

“I know you like the scent.”

“I used to wear it when I was Archon of Naxos.’ She placed it back in the bag and put it on the shelf next to the small rabbit skull. “Thank you. I’m surprised to have both my chicks in the nest at once.”

“I was in Hellas anyway, when I heard of Stentor…” Kassandra felt her face tense up. But Myrrine just kept smiling, if a little less broadly.

“We will send him off properly. With Nikolaos gone, it falls to us. We were his family.”

Alexios came in and took Myrrine in his arms, kissed her as well.

“You did not bring my grandchildren?”

“Not this time, _mater_. But both Klytai and Phylonoe would love to see you, if you would come north…”

“I’m old, child. I don’t have many trips left in me.” She moved to sit down and it pained Kassandra to see how stiff she was, how much the movement cost her. “I didn’t have time to make anything.”

“We’ll feed ourselves, don’t worry.” Alexios reassured her. “So what time…”

“Tomorrow. Early. I know you won’t have any trouble being awake early.” This was aimed at Kassandra, who nodded, her mouth feeling dry. “But first you must tell me everything. What you’ve been doing. Your letters… lamb, you are maddeningly vague _and_ you don’t write me often enough.”

“It’s lucky I even remember how to write at all.”

“Alexios, fetch us some wine, and water. I am long past the point of drinking unwatered wine. You know where I keep it.” As he moved off to obey, Myrrine patted the table next to her. “Sit. We have so much to talk about. I have not seen you in so long.”

Despite the feeling of dread, Kassandra did as she was told, somehow feeling like a small child again in that house.

*

“Ten thousand?”

“If not more.” Kassandra nodded. “Xenophon, he was one of Sokrates’ students. I met him during one of my visits. He was a rare sort of Athenian. He’d have been happier born here in Sparta, I think. He was going to be part of Cyrus the Younger’s mercenary army.”

“And he convinced you to join him.” Myrrine laughed, delighted. “Did he have to try hard?”

“Yes, actually. It was an idiotic idea, Cunaxa. Cyrus wanted to conquer his brother’s empire, but Artaxerxes II was ready for him. We ended up on the losing side. Clearchus took charge… did you know him?”

“I knew of him. A good General, I thought.”

“He was. Reminded me of… well. At first everything was fine, we made an orderly retreat towards the sea, but when we tried to negotiate with Tissaphernes – I mean, we were mercenaries, we were there for money and our employer was dead, we just wanted to go home – he seized Clearchus and his officers and handed them over to Artaxerxes. Well, on to the chopping block for them, and there we were, _misthios_ after_ misthios_ with our backs to the wall. Xenophon took charge…”

“Did he?” Myrrine and Alexios both had smug looks on their faces. Kassandra merely shrugged.

“I of course helped him, it was my neck on the block too.”

“And you actually fought your way through all of Asia Minor?”

“From Cunaxa we followed the Tigris north, then went through Armenia to Trapezus. Heavy fighting, Persians in pursuit, the Carduchians in the mountains. Took a long while to get all the way to the Euxine, where I parted ways with them. I had other work.” She remembered how disappointed Xenophon had been, but she hadn’t felt much like waiting to see if they could secure passage for 10,000 when she had her own ship, and her grudge against the Order to pursue, since Cyrus had so thoroughly failed her in that regard.

“You’ve seen more of Persia than anyone I’ve met.” Myrrine chuckled. “And I lived within easy sight of it.”

“More than I wanted to.” Kassandra felt talked out. While Myrrine and Alexios had been drinking slowly and had watered their wine, she’d thrown back three… or was it four…_kylix_ full of unwatered wine, and she was feeling it. The Staff of Hermes Trismegistus may have forced her to remain as she was, but it didn’t prevent her from feeling Dionysos after so much.

“Well, if we’re giving Stentor his goodbye tomorrow, I’m for bed.” Alexios stood up and Kassandra felt her vision swim to look at him, to see him in the light of the cooking fire. “Goodnight to both of you.”

“Goodnight, ‘Xios.” Kassandra slurred the word a little, hoped he didn’t notice. It took her a few to realize Myrrine was sitting there with her still. “_Mater_, shouldn’t you…”

“I should, yes. But it’s been a long while since I’ve seen you.” She reached out a hand and touched Kassandra’s face. “Has it been so hard?”

“What?”

“I knew, when I passed the spear on to you, that it would be a burden. When I held it, I always knew you’d be the last one. That your destiny was greater even than our family spear. But I look at you now and I can see it in you and I…” She stopped talking, her head bowing slightly. Again Kassandra felt a welling of terror and shock at how old her mother looked. “I wish you’d gotten more time with them.”

“I saw him.” The words came out like rocks falling down a hill. “In Egypt.”

Myrrine met her eyes and the two women sat there with the fire crackling behind them, not speaking, not having to. Kassandra knew Myrrine understood who she meant. Her mother lifted her nearly empty _kylix_ to her lips and finished her drink before speaking.

“How is he?”

“Good. Strong. Like his father. I didn’t tell him who I was. It was an accident, I was there helping the Egyptians win their independence.”

“Was it hard?”

“Seeing him was… it hurt, but I would have had it hurt more if it had meant seeing him more. I wanted to…” Her eyes were watering and she didn’t know how to stop it. “He grew up without me. He’s a man now. He might have children, he might…”

“I remember the day you found me on Naxos.” Myrrine’s hand was on hers now, her fingers against the palm. “Seeing you, a woman, and knowing how much I’d lost, how much I would never have with you. I would never have wanted you to experience it.”

“I know.”

“I should have made you bring him here.”

“Here is exactly where they would have looked.” Kassandra shook her head. “You weren’t in Messenia. The Order had Spartan troops helping them. One of the Kings, either Pleistoanax or Agis had to be helping them. I couldn’t trust anyone here but you to not be with the Order, and they’d kill you just to get to him.”

“There was a time I would never have believed one of our Kings would do such a thing. But then Pausanias…” Kassandra watched her mother shake her head. “And Agis always wanted you. Allying with the people who killed your man and stole your son… he might have thought it a way to remove obstacles without staining his own hands.”

Kassandra nodded, drank more wine. She’d thought of that. She’d also thought about finding out and, if it were so, cutting Agis’ throat. But in the end it just hurt so much that she’d simply avoided it, avoided Sparta, avoided thinking about what she’d lost.

“Tell me more about my grandson.”

“If he grew the way it looked her would, he’s a heartbreaker.” She laughed. “He asked a lot of questions about Greece, about how we beat the Persians. I suppose all think their children are smart, but… he was.” Her _kylix_ was empty and she frowned at it. “Are we out of wine?”

“Since Nikolaos… well, I don’t drink it much myself.” Myrrine stood, with less effort than she’d expended walking to the table. “Can you find your way upstairs? I need sleep if I’m to oversee his departure.”

“Yes, of course.” Kassandra nodded. As Myrrine walked past, she brushed a kiss on the top of her daughter’s head. “I wish I could lift this from you, carry it myself.”

“It’s mine.”

“Even so. No one should have to bear what you have, and I know they’ve marked you for even more.” She squeezed Kassandra’s shoulder with her slim hands. “Never lament me, lamb. You brought life and color back into my world when I thought duty and purpose were all I had left. You saved your brother and brought him back to me. All I’ve had these years was because you came back to me. Never forget.”

“I won’t.” Her voice cracked but Myrrine ignored it, kissed her again, and moved on to her room. Kassandra sat there, staring out the window. Remembered another night drinking wine at that table, almost thirty years gone. She’d never forgotten him, either. At times she wondered how she could love so many different people in so many different ways, how she could survive losing them. How she kept going on while everyone died.

She could almost imagine him sitting across from her.

_Chin up, Spartan._ His smile, that almost-braggadocio of him that masked his quiet confidence. _Easy doesn’t exist_. She’d been with other men and women since him, and had even loved one enough to want to marry him even if she’d never been able to admit it while he was alive. He was right, easy didn’t exist. Nothing had ever been easy.

Nothing ever would be.

She sat at the table and watched the night sky and remembered the way he’d felt that night, when the future had felt open and she’d thought he would be in it.

*

The sunlight was a beautiful rose curtain across the sky when they placed the torch on the pyre and burned him.

Stentor’s face had been lined by age but he’d looked strong, and at peace. He’d never grown a beard, and she’d never told him but that was one of the things she’d liked about him – his lack of a beard made him feel different to her, he didn’t force memories of anyone else but himself on her.

They’d never been close, but by the time she’d had Elpidios he’d accepted her son and her as family. Noisy, disruptive, completely flouing Spartan tradition, yes. But family nonetheless. He was in his way the perfect Spartan, and she knew that Agesipolis and those like him had no idea what they were doing, how they were squandering Sparta’s best and brightest faster than they could be replaced. Thebes, Korinthia, even Athens – the same Athens that had been humbled by Sparta under Lycurgus was now once again looking at Sparta and thinking of challenging her.

Worse, sooner or later someone would, because her Kings kept wasting their people on idiot skirmishes that achieved nothing and cost Spartan lives. Stentor had been older, but how many young men died with him? For nothing?

Her thoughts kept running back and forth from her own son somewhere in Egypt, and how if she’d had him in Sparta he might be dead too, on a pyre just like this one, sacrificed so that an idiot King could boast a victory over Argolis that didn’t even matter.

_I saw the Persians up close. I saw how weak they are. And we’re fighting each other._

Myrrine placed coins on Stentor’s eyes, and both Alexios and Kassandra placed extra in his palms and folded them over his chest. Kassandra still had no idea how true anything Alethia had shown her was, but she remembered the dead in Hades who’d had their coins stolen, and so she tucked an extra pouch of drachmae in his belt.

“Tell Nikolaos I’m sorry.” She whispered it in his ear, and then straightened and stepped back to stand next to Alexios. Myrrine lifted a torch from the nearby fire they’d banked up, and tossed it into the hay between the wood of the pyre.

“Go and cross the river, where your father waits for you. You and he shall rest in Elysium now, and be shields for one another as you were in life. We who remain will join you when our time comes.” They stood and watched as the fire rose, the slight breeze feeding it as the hay caught, and eventually the wood as well. Alexios made sure to wrap his arm around Myrrine, and shield her from any discomfort.

They gathered up the ashes in a large urn and took them to the stone for Nikolaos, and placed the urn with his in a small space underneath. Then they walked back to the house, where Alexios made them all a meal of roasted quails and grapes, nothing that required much from any of them. They all ate sparingly.

“Are you sure you won’t come to Arkadia, _mater_?”

“Alexios…” She shook her head. “This is home. You want me to ride a horse that far?”

“How far from the coast is your home, ‘Xios?” Kassandra asked. Both her mother and brother looked taken aback.

“It’s not that far, south of Olynthos. Why?”

“I have a ship. We’ll have to head south and around Messenia, but… I should finally see this place you’ve filled up with children and grandchildren, should I not?” She turned to face her mother. “And that way you won’t have to ride a horse.”

“To be on a ship again would be nice. Even if I have to endure you as a captain.”

“What’s wrong with me as a captain? I’ve been a captain for years now. I still have _my_ ship, I’ll point out.”

“Do you see how she abuses her own _mater_? Is it not sad?”

“Tragic” Alexios took a mouthful of grapes, seeds and all. “Are you coming or not?”

“I suppose, if I must.”

“You must, since it will achieve the miracle of my sister _finally_ visiting my home.” He smiled over the table at Kassandra, mouthed the words _thank you_ when Myrrine’s back was turned. She returned his look, shrugging very slightly. Easy didn’t exist, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t take what good you found while you had it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, it's all really sad. I try and imagine what it would be like to see everyone you knew and loved dying while you just stayed the same. I feel like it must be a constant series of painful realizations.


End file.
